Revengepop? The prog Karen Carpenter? Barbra Streisand on acid? Bat For Lashes on a bookbinge? Whatever way you choose to describe "Confessions of A Romance Novelist", the debut album by The Anchoress, one thing’s for sure: it packs a punch. Catherine Anne Davies (aka The Anchoress) sums up the album's overall concept as "deconstructing normative ideas of love and romance", with each song sung by a different character.

Draper helped to capture the collection of songs on which Catherine played a variety of instruments, including piano, guitar, flute, omnichord, mellotron, wurlitzer, glockenspiel, and celeste, as well as multitracking up to 25 vocal harmonies on some of the songs. Yet, recording was interrupted by a series of events that threatened to derail the project completely. She says: "This has been made on a wing and a prayer, lots of favours, one car crash, one death, one broken hand, and a lot of patience on so many parts. Stir in 3 jobs, 4 studios, 2 arrests, 3 pianos, 40 songs and 1 very patient enginee… and you get some way to understanding what a long road it has been".

You can hear this distilled in the Prince inspired feminist manifesto ‘One For Sorrow’ that questions the concept of marriage. There’s a different take on obsessional love in the album’s title track, where the album’s narrator ironically references her "bedroom shrine to Margaret Thatcher". Meanwhile, 'You And Only You' an anthemic ode to being better off alone features the distinctive operatic indiewail of Mansun's Paul Draper, who coproduced the album with Catherine.